THEPRP News

Meshuggah Guitarist Apologizes For Creating Djent: “We’re Very Sorry For Creating That Genre”

While it’s popularity has certainly waned in recent years, there was a time that the metal subgenre of djent was inescapable. Meshuggah are often credited as the indirect inspiration that gave birth to the genre and it’s something the band’s guitarist Mårten Hagström has recently apologized for. In an interview with Rauta conducted late last month, Hagström stated:

“First of all, we’re very sorry for creating that genre; we didn’t intend to—our bad. No, but it’s actually… I think it’s a misconception, that djent thing. I think it’s kind of hilarious.”

“It’s our lead guitar player, Fredrik [Thordendal], being drunk back in the day, talking to one of our old-school fans, trying to explain what type of guitar tone we were always trying to get, and he was desperately trying to say, ‘We want that ‘dj_,’ ‘dj_,’ ‘dj_,’ ‘dj_.’ And that guy was, like, ‘What’s he saying? Is that a Swedish word? Must be.

Sounds like dj_, maybe ‘djent’? Maybe something like that.’ And that’s where it comes from. A drunk misunderstanding, as always with Meshuggah.”

Speaking about how he would describe the sound of Meshuggah himself, he stated:

“Heavy, experimental music… I don’t care if it’s progressive or not — it’s heavy. And that’s the most… But the thing is, trying to define things… Either it gets into that math-metal, djent subgenre type of thing, that’s for other people to decide. We play aggressive, experimental music, and that’s basically it.”